Chapter 4596

Anatoly seemed very eager to know what was going on with Schiller, but he wasn't as talkative as Deathstroke, merely observing in silence. Schiller, for his part, had no intention of hiding anything; the first thing he did upon returning to the city was to load his gun and find a car to drive toward Cairo's red-light district.

Arriving at the red-light district, he walked straight inside. As soon as he caught sight of the madam, he stuffed dollars into her chest. Schiller brushed past her, went upstairs, and knocked on the door at the very end of the corridor. As soon as the door opened, a pitch-black gun barrel was pressed against Lady Shiva's forehead.

"That won't work on me, boy."

"Someone is controlling you," Schiller said. "I think you know who that is."

Lady Shiva's movements paused. She then sighed softly, stepped aside to let Schiller in, closed the door, and said, "Hayvin is too greedy; he wants too much. I just didn't expect him to dare make a move against me."

"When a businessman is no longer satisfied with his current wealth, he will inevitably meddle in politics. The chaotic situation in Egypt is of no benefit to either you or me. If it's inconvenient for you to finish off your former employer, I can help you."

"You want me to trust an American cop?" Lady Shiva smiled contemptuously.

"A typical American cop wouldn't appear here." Schiller tilted his head. "I just want Hayvin's location."

Lady Shiva hesitated slightly. After a long moment, she spoke: "Although I am an assassin, I don't like killings that aren't under my control. Hayvin shouldn't have used this method to manipulate me—he has a lover in Romania and usually spends Ramadan there."

"I don't have time to go to Romania," Schiller said. "Make him come back."

"His most prized possessions are his collection of artifacts. He wouldn't risk moving everything; some must still be left in Egypt."

"Where?"

"I don't know. No one knows." Lady Shiva shook her head. "He wouldn't tell anyone about this."

"Fine, I understand." Schiller took out his phone, dialed a number, and while walking out, said to the other end, "Hello, Joseph?"

By the time he walked out of the small building, he had already hung up the phone and was driving toward the address he'd gotten from Joseph. While he was upstairs, Deathstroke was trying to probe Anatoly—or at least, he thought he was probing him.

"When did you two meet?"

Anatoly was lost in his own thoughts and didn't speak. Deathstroke said with some frustration, "What's your relationship? Why does he speak Russian? If you don't tell me, I'm going to start guessing."

Anatoly glanced at him and said, "How can you act so much like a stereotypical American idiot?"

"Cough, cough, cough..." Deathstroke nearly choked on his own saliva. "If you don't want to answer, don't answer. There's no need for personal attacks! I haven't offended you!"

"Ah, many people fall for your act," Anatoly said to himself. "A completely brainless American blonde idiot. I bet you play football, too?"

Deathstroke opened his mouth: "That's discrimination, you damn Russian. You can't do this..."

"The linguistic logic sounds like a quarterback. 'Long pass! Long pass!' I'm glad you know English words other than that."

Deathstroke had never wished for Schiller to return as much as he did right now. Help me!

Schiller didn't let him down; he returned quickly, drove toward another address, and stopped in a residential area on the outskirts of Cairo. This time, he took the revolver, and then, with a "Boom," the house on the ground nearly lifted off its foundation.

Blowing open the door to the safe house, Schiller didn't pause for a second. He kicked over the display stand next to him, followed by several well-packed crates and a large pile of glass cabinets, then raised his hand and shot out the chandelier.

Next was the next safe house, hidden in the maintenance room of the underground water system. There was another one not far from the Mayor's mansion. Even the one hidden in the rabbit hole behind the villa wasn't spared; almost the entire network was wiped out.

Finally, he drove to another residential area. This was the last one, and also the largest. The previous safe houses were a mix of truth and lies, mostly fake—created for false appraisals to fool auction houses. This last one contained only genuine items.

Hayvin didn't make him wait too long. Before dawn, his figure appeared hurriedly outside the villa's courtyard wall. Schiller climbed over the wall, and as the motion-sensor light turned on, it illuminated Hayvin's pale face.

"I..."

Bang!

The corpse fell onto the lawn, making only a very soft sound. Schiller stepped forward, pulled out a dagger, pressed one hand against the jaw to lift the head, and with the other hand, aimed the dagger toward the genioglossus muscle and stabbed inward. Only when the target was completely unresponsive did he pull out the dagger, stick it into the mud of the lawn, pull it out again, and wipe it on the target's lapel.

Putting away the dagger, Schiller searched Hayvin's body and quickly found the phone in his pocket. He flipped through the message history, his gaze stopping on "Deputy Curator Sa'a" in the contact list.

Schiller returned to the car with the phone, tossed it to Deathstroke in the passenger seat, and said, "Help me invite him to the museum."

Deathstroke glanced at the message editing list Schiller had pulled up and didn't ask too much, editing an Arabic message and sending it off.

Driving to the museum, as Schiller got out of the car, Anatoly suddenly spoke up: "Shet has a knife."

"Got it." His movements paused for only a second before he strode into the museum.

The curator's office was on the top floor, with a direct elevator, but Schiller didn't take the elevator, choosing to take the stairs instead. After reaching the fifth floor, he walked quickly into the office.

He didn't wait there long before footsteps echoed from the stairwell. Schiller pushed the door open and raised his gun. Bang.

The sound from the suppressed pistol was very faint, about as loud as the sound of a door closing, but what echoed in the corridor was a different sound of metal clashing. Schiller sidestepped to dodge the blade's light, raised his hand, and fired another shot. Bang!

As the morning light began to brighten, standing at the end of the corridor was a dark-skinned man in a suit. In his hand, he held a gleaming precious blade, the hilt inlaid with luxurious gems; one look told you it wasn't a product of this era.

"You..."

Bang! Bang! Two more shots. The precious blade wasn't a shield and couldn't be used to block bullets at all. One of the bullets hit his shoulder, and the man let out a muffled grunt, raising the blade to press forward again.

Schiller sidestepped the slash again and kicked him in the side of the leg, making him stumble. Bang!

A shot went straight into his waist and abdomen. The man clutched his left waist, bowing in pain. Schiller kicked the blade out of his hand. Bang!

The man slowly collapsed, looking at Schiller in disbelief. Schiller walked over, picked up the blade, and said to him, "Hass Shet. Prince Khufu sends his regards. There is no peace for the traitor."

A startling hatred erupted in Shet's eyes, but as his life force faded, he gradually lost his strength. The precious blade flashed with a glimmer of light, seemingly interfering with the path of his soul. Schiller didn't stop it, simply stepping forward again to finish him off with the dagger.

"Alright, let's go back," Schiller said, pulling open the car door.

"So you returned to Egypt just to nip the trouble in the bud?" Deathstroke turned his head to ask.

"No," Schiller turned to look at Anatoly and said, "I wanted to persuade him not to make a move against the Justice League."

"How do you plan to persuade him?" Anatoly asked, crossing his arms.

"The Batman you want to demonstrate against isn't here right now," Schiller said. "The reason they came to find you is that they want you to help find Batman."

"Where did Batman go?"

"That's exactly what I was about to say." Schiller sighed and said, "An arrogant student caused a massive amount of trouble, and Batman's disappearance is related to him."

"So it really was you who did it?!" Deathstroke was the first to exclaim in surprise. Although he had already suspected it, hearing the news still felt shocking.

Schiller looked at Deathstroke with some disdain, as if Deathstroke's comprehension skills were flawed. When did he ever say he did it himself?

"Better wait for Arrogance to tell you himself," Schiller said. "Once I drop you off, my mission is complete. You should be able to see him very soon."

"Will he tell me about your situation? Or will Greed?"

Schiller sighed: "Fine, what do you want to know? Rather than waiting for those two to orchestrate me, I might as well tell you myself."

"How did you become an agent?"

"Specially recruited."

"Of course. You wouldn't have entered the Agent Academy and passed the exam. I'm asking why they specially recruited you."

"Probably because they valued my talent."

"They actually recruited someone with real talent? Unheard of."

"They needed someone to do the dirty work."

"I get it, you have dirt on you that they're holding over your head."

"A small mistake."

"That doesn't sound right." Anatoly raised an eyebrow. "Who caused the trouble?"

"You could say it was Greed."

"So you were created by him to be the scapegoat."

"No," Schiller said. "Don't tell me you really wanted me to use my talents to contribute to the American police system?"

"Oh, so you were created by him to cause trouble." Anatoly narrowed his eyes. "You're a top-tier agent."

"Yes, but as you said, to become a top-tier agent in the FBI, you don't rely on merit. As long as you kill all your opponents, you naturally become the only choice."

"Looks like you haven't killed few of your own people." Anatoly said. "And then?"

"And then what?"

"After you came back."

"I took quite a few jobs, you could say I was world-renowned, and I received unanimous praise from Batman." Schiller paused and continued, "It's just that I couldn't avoid bringing some internal fighting habits with me, and I also took down a few Batmen."

Anatoly laughed and said, "That is true talent."

The two of them communicated in Russian the whole time, but Deathstroke had spent time in Eastern Europe and could speak Russian, so he could understand the gist of it. However, when the two switched to Chinese, he was completely confused.

"Looks like you haven't been slacking off over there." Anatoly said.

"It's alright. Classes on weekdays, church on weekends, just taking time out to get revenge. After graduation, I wanted to pursue advanced studies, but fate had other plans, and I became an agent."

Anatoly snorted coldly: "Attending class was to create an alibi, going to church was to better dispose of corpses, preparing to become a full-time assassin after graduation, and becoming an agent was to kill people legally."

Schiller looked away and said, "Looks like you won't believe anything I say."

"Because you really have no credibility." Anatoly looked at him and said, "The result of letting pathology dominate everything is like this. You must have been stifled back home, right?"

"I don't know, I'm just an ordinary agent." Schiller decided to end the topic, but after thinking about it, he still said, "But I soon got back on the right track and returned to the ranks of teaching and educating people."

"Just to have a more decent identity to walk in high society, obtain more classified information from that organization, and force them to make you crash the plane."

"Yes. But what I'm saying is exactly that if I had stayed an agent instead of becoming a professor, Arrogance wouldn't have stayed at Gotham University, and wouldn't have had to go save his lousy student at this time."

"Then I'd rather go help him save the student."

"With those words from you, I can rest easy." Schiller said. "Now, Batmen from several important universes are hanging on the Source Wall along with the Batman Who Laughs and the Multiversal Darkseid. I'm out of ideas; it's up to you now."

Anatoly's movements stiffened: "The Source Wall?"

"How about it? Do you feel my career planning is better now?"